FLIGHT OF THE TWILIT SENTINEL: Phase Two
by kublakhan27
Summary: Inspired by events from Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword.


PHASE TWO: Loftwings

Weather was a non-existent word - much less a phenomenon - to the Skylofters, whose closest encounter with the concept occurred when the clouds greyed and rumbling sounds seemed to crawl beneath the dark fluff; slightly offbeat harmonic by-products of unforeseen flickers of white. But there was an area far off in the distance that looked like a bloated wall of cloud where the duet of rumble and flicker appeared to occur with unceasing regularity. Yet no Skylofter had ever been able to spirit its Loftwing close enough to this towering grey-white enigma.

Loftwings were the combined Earthen equivalent of pets and vehicles, not unlike horses to The Earth's land-dwellers. These sizable, bird-like creatures however, traversed the open plains of azure in times of both leisure and work; their firm, feathered backs carrying their owners to whatever errands beckoned beyond the main land mass. They were creatures of formidable intellect, most of them blue in colour as irony would have it, and appeared to possess unflappable memory and unwavering senses, particularly sight and sound. Every Skylofter was befriended by a Loftwing at some point in their lives, usually in their youth, and grew up in sync with their flying partners, who laid claim to an inexplicable talent: an ability to identify the whistle of its owner from wherever and however far away it originated from, and seemed to know instinctively that a whistle meant they were needed at once. After all, so reliable and intelligent were the Loftwings that their owners were often all too happy to let them explore and traverse the skies on their own from time to time.

The Skylofters held their Loftwings in such high intellectual regard that none questioned their universal refusal to venture too close to that tower of uneasy clouds. It signified the only instance in which the Loftwings were not obedient to their owners. And yet, their seemingly telepathic reticence with regard to that single destination was reason enough for the Skylofters to theorize that whatever lay beyond that vertical horizon was nothing they wished to pursue with aggression.

However, mythologies circulated amongst the middle realm; the legend most captivating to its inhabitants suggested the origins of their very being were hidden behind that clouded wall, possibly a deity or divine agent of some sort: a personfication of purpose behind the land's mammoth Statue Of The Goddess, which peered over Skyloft with a shadow nearly vast as the land mass itself. The Goddess provided the realm with a possible template for its creation, and subsequently, a means of consolation in times of insecurity over who they were and where they were going when life expired and froze their bodies in the mould of the very expression their faces conveyed at that moment of expiration. It was a divine template substantiated by the fact that no one - even the most brilliant scholars of Skyloft - was ever able to assign an age to its presence among them. Many believed that a spiritual pasture of sorts lay beyond the wall of cloud, a mystical place of residence shaped by The Goddess herself, with no accessibility to those who belonged to whatever generation actively oversaw their land. To that end, the Skylofters not only held the Loftwings in high intellectual regard, but spiritual regard as well; a psychic link between the living and the departed.

To the more pragmatic residents of Skyloft, the apparent activity that kept the Loftwings away was either a sort of supplemental energy source necessary to the sun's conservation, or a means of protection from some sort of fatal pollution that would endanger Skyloft's pristine quality of living.

Were they capable of speech, they would have indeed notified the people of a divine presence lingering beyond that flickering barrier. But even their sublime intuition was not formidable enough to decipher the sense of disturbance that had taken up residence there. They only knew that in some way, their very history was being tampered with, and extinction - or at least an apocalyptic tenure - was not out of the realm of possibility.


End file.
